


Memory

by Yatorihell



Series: In The Darkness [69]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, ノラガミ | Noragami (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:14:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29223783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yatorihell/pseuds/Yatorihell
Summary: NE.W.T. exams start, and a new lead presents itself
Series: In The Darkness [69]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/547369
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	Memory

Yato thought about the box of chocolates for the rest of the week; the pink heart shape, the delicate red bow, the handwritten note which, when compared to Hiyori’s, didn’t match.

After Yato was released from the infirmary a few days later, a trip to Hogsmeade proved that they were shop-bought. Whilst such potions were banned in Hogwarts, it didn’t stop students from smuggling them in to get their crushes to notice them.

Nora came to mind as Yato looked at the innocent-looking parcels, but why would she give him a love potion? He dismissed the idea just as quickly as it came, but he still pondered who could’ve gone to such lengths to make him fall in love.

Yato had little time to dwell on it as the next match in the Quidditch cup – Slytherin vs Ravenclaw – arrived on a brisk, frosted Saturday morning. The captain gave Yato a look that probably meant that he should pay attention and catch the Snitch this time, but Yato was too busy fiddling with his leather gloves to care.

It must’ve shown as the announcer commentated on Yato’s lack of movement as he hung above the pitch, keeping an eye out for the Snitch. When the glimmer caught his eye it was too late. He was too slow for Kazuma, and the Snitch was caught within the first hour of the game, sealing Ravenclaws victory.

Hiyori and Yukine watched as Yato drifted down and hit the ground striding, his broom dragging a path through the frost. He ripped his aviator goggles from his face and they saw a short altercation between him and the sharp-nosed Slytherin captain. Yato waved his hand at him dismissively and kept walking.

They exchanged looks. They knew Yato wasn’t thinking straight, distracted by the ever-growing puzzle of horcruxes that refused to reveal themselves and the attempts on the headmaster’s life. Perhaps getting back into Quidditch wasn’t such a good idea when Yato practically had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Hiyori and Yukine found Yato in the library. His head was firmly planted on the desk when they took seats at the table, folding their arms and waiting in comforting silence.

After a moment Yato spoke. “How bad was it?”

“No worse than when Bishamon got the Snitch,” Yukine consoled. He earned a huff and Yato lifted his head, leaning back against the chair.

Yato’s face twisted as he looked up at the high ceiling. “I just… can’t concentrate. I can’t find the horcruxes. I can’t catch the Snitch. I can’t stop Nora from poisoning or cursing us.”

“It’s going to take time,” Hiyori said, but the sentiment was lost. Yato had been trying to find the horcruxes for months, and the only one he could see was a common necklace that had appeared in two different places.

“I know, I know,” Yato sighed. He dragged a hand through his hair. “It’s just, it feels like Nora is planning something.”

“We could start watching her?” Yukine offered. “Not stalking, we know she’ll figure that out right away, but if we just note where she goes…”

Yato shrugged. He couldn’t see a reason that it could backfire – until the idea of Nora cursing or hurting them again. He shook it from his head. She wouldn’t. Their own sufferings were intended for the headmaster, they just got in the way.

He would just have to hope that she wouldn’t get in the way when it came to finding the horcruxes.

~

Yato went to bed after dinner. Between his teammates giving him dirty looks as their victory in the Quidditch Cup now hung by a thread and the eyes staring at the back of his head, he felt it would be better to try and sleep.

The common room and the dormitories were empty, and though he had become used to the solitude it provided, he always expected Nora to emerge with some vague warning. She didn’t.

Yato threw himself on his bed, very aware of how alone he was. Not even Coo Phone was in the Owlery to pet, and no one was home to send a letter to except Ebisu. He doubted he could read or write anyway.

Yato buried his head under the pillow and, with these thoughts in mind, he fell asleep.

~

_He was back in Grimmauld Place, but it wasn’t the one he was accustomed to._

_The green wallpaper had pulled away from the walls, curling down like phantom fingers. The gas lamps that lined the hallway were extinguished, unlit, and hanging with spiderwebs like the chandelier above him._ _The hallway stretched out to the staircase, forebodingly ill-lit and shadow in the outlines of the house-elf heads that he hated._

_He heard scuttling behind him as a rat passed into the dining room. A clack of plates in the kitchen galley under his feet told him that Ebisu was here, and the replying voices made his heart jump. Sakura. The idea of seeing her alone was nearly enough to break him from his trance, but still he found himself walking into the library, just like he dreamed every time before. He stopped in front of the shelves, gazing over the familiar books and trinkets and photographs that he’d pawed over for clues every time he dreamt of home._

_The same three goblets sat atop the shelves: sapphire, ruby, emerald, all caked in webs._

_Normally Yato would pick up the emerald-studded goblet and find the necklace that had taunted him mercilessly, but the feeling left once Professor Tenjin told him that it was nothing. A red herring in a sea of lies._

_But this time, his fingers danced to the sapphire goblet. Yato watched, intrigued, as his hand brought it down to his level and he looked inside._

_There was the gold ring he’d seen before but not in a dream. In real life._

_Yato plucked it out and held it in his palm. To him, it looked like a signet ring carrying a family seal, the kind used for imprinting wax on letters, but an empty feeling washed over him. Not all-encompassing the way the locket had called out to him, but like a void of silence that blanketed the dead._

_Something told him there should’ve been a call that was silenced long ago, leaving a hollowness in his chest where he felt a part of him was missing._

~

Spring rolled in and, while Professor Tenjin dismissed his most recent discovery as homesickness, the ring and the necklace continued to show up.

Yato didn’t know why the ring was coming up now. He knew it was in Grimmauld Place already, but it never factored in with horcruxes. He had never felt anything when he picked it up as he did with the necklace, but the wave of mourning that washed over him in his vision it was couldn’t be shaken, homesickness or not.

When the Easter holidays arrived Yato decided that he wouldn’t go look for it. He told himself that it wasn’t necessary, that Professor Tenjin and Madame Kofuku were right about tampered visions meant to lead him astray despite his feelings. But part of him wasn’t ready to go home yet.

Instead, he decided to stay at Hogwarts to study for his upcoming N.E.W.T.s exams. To this, Yukine and Hiyori also agreed to stay.

It seemed that the rest of the seventh years had the same idea as practically every table in the library was full. Parchments rolled across the floor and entire tables were laden with open and closed books on various topics. The librarian looked as if she would pass out from the amount of filing and book-hunting she was laden with.

Yato, Hiyori and Yukine plucked their way through, careful not to step or knock anything, as they made their way to the back of the library.

Bishamon and Kazuma had already snagged a table at six o’clock in the morning in a preferred, quiet corner. The April sunshine cast light onto Kazuma’s haggard face as he sipped coffee from a thermos Yukine had gifted him some years ago, whereas Bishamon looked as if she had just sat down. Only she raised her hand in greeting as Kazuma scribbled intelligibly into a notebook.

Hiyori and Yukine took seats in the window, acting as quiet moral support and becoming depressed at the thought that they would be in the same position in a years’ time.

Yato sat beside Kazuma and forlornly looked across the expanse of books they had robbed from one of the tables, all variations of potions guides. He debated leaving and privately studying Madame Kofuku’s textbook, but it would be hard to explain his success if he didn’t at least look like he was trying. He would have to study it in secret.

By midday, Yato was ready to leave, and no amount of study-shaming would change it.

“You really should study,” Bishamon frowned. “You’ve only been here two hours.”

“I’m great at Potions. Aren’t I, Yukine?” Yato asked over his shoulder.

Yukine grumbled something but Yato took it as an agreement. He stood up and tried not to look smug as he left, Hiyori and Yukine in his wake.

“Bishamon’s right, Yato,” Hiyori said once they’d left the peaceful sanctity of the library. “N.E.W.T.s are important. They qualify what jobs you can get, how well you did…”

“You know I have Potions covered,” Yato waved a hand as they walked aimlessly, ignoring the fact he’d been cheating in it. “Defence, well, we’ve had enough fights in the last year to know what we’re doing.”

That was true enough; they had trained students in the Order of the Phoenix and faced Deatheaters on multiple occasions. Yato had even fought the Sorcerer.

“Care of Magical Creatures is covered as you’ve seen I’m wonderful with animals: Buckbeak, Coo Phone, Thestrals, werewolves, dragons, merpeople,” Yato rattled off on his fingers.

The last two were in reference to the Triwizard Tournament, where Yato nearly died at least three times, but Hiyori and Yukine didn’t point that out.

“Charms and Transfiguration are just-,” Yato wiggled his hand in the air as if he were waving a wand. “A swish and flick.”

 _“It’s Levi-O-sa, not Levio-SAR,”_ Yukine mimicked in a poor attempt at Hiyori’s voice, some of the first words Hiyori had said to him in their first Charms class.

Hiyori pushed Yukine with a laugh, protesting _‘I don’t sound like that’_ and _‘I was just trying to help’_.

A smile pulled at Yato’s lips when he saw Hiyori smirk and roll her eyes, relenting her attack on Yukine. Her attention came back to Yato who was still smiling at her, eyes fixed.

“Just… don’t get cocky,” Hiyori said.

Yukine barked out a laughed as if the very request were absurd. For Yato, it probably was.

~

On the first day of the summer term, a cluster of pink envelopes descended over the Great Hall’s breakfast tables.

Hiyori plucked hers out of the air, noting that Bishamon also caught one in her hands. Curious, she gently peeled back the envelope flap and pulled out a firm piece of light pink card. Her eyes lit up at the first few lines.

_You are cordially invited to the wedding of_

_Kofuku & Daikoku_

Hiyori’s smile grew wider as she read the details. It seemed that the wedding would be held at their house on August 1st.

She scooted out of her seat as the bell rang signaling the first period and made her way over to Yato and Yukine. They too held pink envelopes.

“A wedding!” Hiyori exclaimed. They had never seen a ring on her finger; maybe because it would dissolve if she dropped it into the wrong potion. “I wonder why Madame Kofuku never told us they were getting married.”

“Probably wanted to keep it a secret,” Yukine shrugged. “Don’t want to advertise when and where to kill the Order, do they?”

With this Yukine nodded towards the teacher's table where she could see a smattering of identical envelopes. Professor Tenjin, Professor Tsuyu, even Kuraha, had pale pink invites in their hands. She caught a glimpse of pink on the Ravenclaw table as she turned back; Kazuma.

“Don’t be so morbid!” Hiyori exclaimed.

“He’s got a point,” Yato agreed. He pushed the invite into his satchel, and Hiyori felt the need to remark that he shouldn’t treat it like another crumpled piece of paper.

“Well, it’ll give us something to look forward to at least,” Hiyori said. She turned on her heel and started out of the Great Hall, leaving Yato and Yukine to follow.

Yato grimaced. He knew what she meant. With the new term brought a student’s worst nightmare: N.E.W.T.s. All his studying in the library with Kazuma and Bishamon seemed worthless when he thought of walking into the Great Hall to sit each exam, knowing that his performance would decide his future. Whoever thought of letting kids have this much responsibility was an idiot.

“We have our match to look forward to, remember?” Yukine nudged Yato playfully as they ascended the stairs in the wave of students. He had the same shit-eating grin he had picked up from Yato over the years plastered on his face.

Yato groaned. He’d almost forgotten the Hufflepuff vs Slytherin match that weekend. He was being pulled in so many directions that he could barely keep track of what he should be doing. _Find the horcruxes, Yato. Catch the Snitch, Yato. Study for your exams, Yato._ He would go mad before the summer even started.

“Yeah, well, at least it’s the last match for me.”

They turned a corner on the grand staircase, making their way to Charms, when Yato caught sight of shape out of the corner of his eye. Not so discreetly, he turned his head and found himself staring at Nora.

Yato stopped in the flow of students coursing around them, Hiyori and Yukine not noticing his absence. She stood on the opposite side of the moving staircases, hands planted on the stone banister and glaring down at him.

In a heartbeat she broke eye contact and continued up the stairs, vanishing from view in the tide of black robes.

“Yato?”

Yato turned and found Hiyori in front of him, having bashed her way back through the crowd. She had a searching look on her face. “What’s wrong, did you see something?”

 _‘See’_ was the term they’d coined for asking whether Yato had a vision, but he shook his head.

“No, it was just Nora. Looked like she wanted to commit murder the way she was staring at me.”

Hiyori would’ve snorted if that wasn’t exactly what she had been trying to do. Hiyori grabbed his sleeve and tugged him away despite his backwards glances.

“Come on, we’ll be late for class.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm nearly done writing the arc now :3c


End file.
